


Who Will Bring Me Flowers When It's Over?

by starrywrite



Series: Robot AU [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Robot AU, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrywrite/pseuds/starrywrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil isn’t like the other robots; while they all share a mutual apathetic view of the world, only set out to do what they’re programmed to do, Phil loves the world. He loves nature and he loves <i>life</i> in general. But life is short and Phil learns the hard way that no matter how much you love something, that doesn’t mean it’ll live forever.</p>
<p>companion piece/deleted scenes for my fic "Even Robots Need Blankets"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Will Bring Me Flowers When It's Over?

**Author's Note:**

> guess who's back back again robot phil's back tell ur friends
> 
> i found like two or three blogs just dedicated to robots and robot aus so needless to say, my love for this series has been refueled ((as if it ever went away lol)) so here’s another in the adventures of Robot Phil and Dan!! 
> 
> inspired by this: http://kelpls.tumblr.com/post/96379603194/sweats-as-i-continue-this-part-1-part-2-if-u
> 
> enjoy!!

Phil isn't like the other robots; while they all share a mutual apathetic view of the world, only set out to do what they're programmed to do, Phil loves the world. He loves nature and he loves _life_ in general. But life is short and Phil learns the hard way that no matter how much you love something, that doesn't mean it'll live forever. 

It happens one spring morning, the first _real_ day of spring when all the cold has melted away, and the colors of the leaves on the trees are no longer red and orange and yellow but a rich green, and the flowers have begun to grow once again. 

Phil decides that spring is his favorite time of the year. The colors are brighter and the air is warmer, and the sun is shining brightly in the sky. Everything is so full of life and there’s just something in the air that makes everyone - even Dan, who doesn’t like most things - happy, and it’s beautiful, everything is so beautiful in the springtime. 

“Phil is going outside!” he announces in the middle of the afternoon, because it’s too lovely of a day to stay inside. “Does Dan want to join Phil?” 

“Dan’s allergic to everything green,” he says, not looking up from his laptop. Phil supposes that he’s doing something very important and that’s the reason why he can’t join him outside on his beautiful spring day; the blue website with pictures of Kanye West and all things anime consumes a lot of Dan’s time, it must be a lot of work. 

“Does Dan want an antihistamine?” Phil asks because allergies aren’t something to take with a grain of salt. 

Dan smiles a little, still not looking up from his laptop. “No thank you, Phil, I’m fine,” he says. “Go, have fun - but be safe.”

“Phil will be safe,” the robot replies, and then he happily makes his way out of Dan’s flat and outside.

He doesn’t have lungs, so he can’t enjoy the pleasure of breathing in the crisp spring air, but everything feels cool and comforting around him that it almost makes up for that. He looks around at everything in awe - the green grass beneath him, the flowers growing the cracks of the sidewalk, the large tree that grows beside the building where Dan lives, the people hustling and bustling about. And in the midst of him figuratively inhaling everything around him, he sees it. A butterfly. 

He recognizes its orange and black wings and instantly identifies it as a monarch butterfly. He’s never seen one in person before, only pictures of them online when Dan’s asleep because Dan’s afraid of bugs and doesn’t like pictures of them. But isn’t afraid; he figures it might be because ‘fear’ isn’t something that’s programmed in him, but nevertheless, he really likes bugs. He finds himself fascinated by them - by their wings and multitude of legs, the way some fly and others crawl. Bugs are remarkable creatures, and the monarch butterfly flying around before his eyes is no exception. 

It’s as beautiful as it is on Google Images - perhaps even _more_ beautiful because now it’s real and it’s flying around in front of him, and Phil decides that because it’s so beautiful, he wants to show it to Dan. 

He reaches out for it, struggling to grab a hold of it for a moment, but he finally manages to catch it and he holds it tightly in his hands so he doesn’t drop it. He quickly heads inside, butterfly resting safely in his hand, and he locates Dan immediately.

“Look at what Phil has found!” he says happily, and he opens his hand to reveal the monarch. “Isn’t it beautiful!” 

Dan looks up from his laptop to look at the butterfly. “Oh cool,” he smiles. “I haven’t seen many butterflies lately -” he stops himself for a moment, then frowns. “Oh, it’s dead. That’s a shame.”

“Dead?” Phil asks. How could the butterfly be dead now? It was perfectly fine a few moments ago when he spotted it flying around outside. 

Dan nods, grimacing at the butterfly in Phil’s hand, no longer smiling at it and Phil stops smiling as well. “Yeah, it looks like the poor thing has been crushed to death,” he says, then he glances up at Phil. “Where’d you find it anyways?” 

“Phil caught it,” he says, but he’s no longer proud of his fact because it’s processing quickly in his mind that the butterfly he caught is now dead and he comes to the conclusion that it’s his fault. “Did Phil kill it?” he asks quietly.

Dan falls silent for a moment. “It’s not your fault, Phil,” he says. “You didn’t know and -” he pauses, then just says, “It’s okay, love. Just don’t do it again.” 

Now Phil is confused. Why can’t he catch butterflies anymore? What if next time he tries to catch one it doesn’t die? What are the odds of that happening? He tries to do the calculations but doesn’t come to a conclusion, so he decides to ask Dan. Dan knows a lot of things that Phil doesn’t know. “Why?” 

Dan sighs a little, then closes his laptop, putting it aside and he motions for Phil to sit next to him. “Because,” he starts, and he speaks slowly, as if trying to collect his thoughts and make sure he says the right thing. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but you’re much stronger than you realize so when you tried to catch the butterfly, even though I know you just wanted to show me because you thought it was really beautiful, you did kill it. It’s not nice to kill anything or anyone - even bugs. They have little bug families and friends that’ll miss them.” he runs his fingers through his fringe anxiously - another habit he has. “And besides, all living things, no matter how small, matter to someone.” he pauses thoughtfully, then smiles a little and adds. “Even robots.”

“But,” Phil starts. “Phil is not a living thing. Phil is not alive.” 

“What are you talking about, love?” Dan asks, puzzled. 

“Phil is not alive,” he repeats. “Phil is a robot, and robots are an automatic mechanical device often resembling a human or animal. Modern robots are usually an electro-mechanical machine guided by a computer program or electronic circuitry.”

Dan blinks. “Thank you, Google,” he says.

“I am Phil,” Phil tells him. 

The brunet smiles a bit, chuckling to himself, and fondly reaching out to hold Phil’s hand. “I was just being facetious, love,” he tells him. 

Phil beeps softly in response, because sometimes he isn't quite sure how to respond when Dan is facetious - treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor (see also: flippant) - and he simply says, “Phil does not matter to someone, because Phil is not alive.” 

“Hey, that’s not true,” Dan says immediately. “You matter - you matter to me quite a bit.”

“But Dan said all _all living things, no matter how small, matter to someone_ , and Phil is not living-”

“You may not be alive in the way that I am, but you're a live in a differen way,” Dan interrupts. “You look real,” he reaches out for Phil's hand, the one that's not holding the dead butterfly. “And you feel real, so just because you don’t have a beating heart in your chest, who’s to say that your thoughts and feelings are any less real than mine are? Having a beating heart and functioning lungs and blood pumping through your body doesn't mean you're alive; being alive is _living_ , it's doing something and being something, and Phil you are something and you're doing something with your existence, and you _are_ living. Maybe not in the same way that I am because I am a human and you aren't, but you are living. You're alive to me.” Phil, for once, is speechless and he doesn’t know what to say or how he ended up with a master - a _friend_ \- as kind and loving as Dan. “And if it’s any consolation,” he adds. “Even if you weren't a live, you would still matter to me probably more than you could ever realize.”

“Dan matters to Phil,” the bot says once he's gathered his thoughts again. “Dan is Phil’s best friend.” 

Dan smiles, his cheeks and ears going red. “You’re my best friend too,” he tells him. 

“Phil loves Dan,” Phil tells him. “Phil doesn’t know if he is capable of the emotion ‘love’ but Phil is pretty sure he loves Dan.”

“Oh, pretty sure?” Dan teases. 

Phil nods. “About ninety-five percent positive,” he says, and Dan laughs loudly - though Phil isn’t quite sure why; math isn’t very funny. 

“Well, I love you too, Phil,” Dan tells him. “I’m one hundred percent positive about that.” he smiles fondly at Phil, but his smile drops a little, glancing down at his open palm, still holding the deceased butterfly. “Um, can you take the dead bug out of the flat please?”

“What should Phil do with it?” the bot ask looking down at it. He feels bad for it; he didn’t mean to kill it, but now it’s life has come to an end and the poor butterfly didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to his butterfly family. It’s quite a shame, really. Death is a terrible thing. 

“Just… take it outside,” Dan says with a shrug. “Really not much you can do with the poor thing now.” Phil beeps sadly in response; there has to be _something_ he can do for the butterfly whose untimely demise came sooner than it expected. Dan picks up on Phil’s sadness over this and with a sigh he quickly wracks his brain for an answer, and then he tells him, “You can bury it out in the yard - like a funeral. Give it a proper goodbye.” 

“Funeral,” Phil repeats. “A ceremony for celebrating, respecting, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Not to be confused with the debut album by the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released on September 14, 2004 in North America by Merge Records and on February 28, 2005 in Europe by Rough Trade Records.” 

“Arcade who - nevermind,” Dan shakes his head, getting up to his feet. “Here, come with me, bring the deceased with you.” Phil follows Dan outside once again, and Dan leads him to the front yard where he digs a little hole in the ground and motions for Phil to drop the butterfly inside. 

Burials are common at funerals, Phil knows this, and he decides that the butterfly deserves nothing less than a proper burial. He places the butterfly inside of the hole Dan had dug for him, then covers him with dirt and picks a few sparse dandelions to place atop of the makeshift grave. He pats the top of the dirt and whispers, “Phil is sorry, little butterfly.” 

Dan kneels down next to him, an arm wrapped around his shoulder. “Don’t be sad, Phil,” he tells him. “The butterfly is in a better place now.” 

Phil turns to look at him. “Like Brighton?” he asks. Phil’s been to Brighton once before - it’s very nice. 

Dan chuckles, shaking his head the way he does when Phil says something that’s apparently funny even though he doesn’t see how it is. “Even better than Brighton,” Dan says. 

“Can we go there?” Phil asks, and Dan helps him up so they can go back inside. 

“One day everyone ends up going there,” Dan says. “You and I will go there one day, hopefully not one day soon, but one day.” 

Phil beeps a little before asking, “Even me?” because this place sounds like an exclusive club meant only for the living when they eventually die, and since Phil is not living maybe that means he won't be allowed to go. And that makes him sad, because if his best friend is going to this place, then he certainly wants to go as well. 

Dan’s arm is still wrapped around his shoulder as they walk back up to their flat and with a small smile, he says, “Yeah, love, even you.” 

Phil beeps happily in response; the sadness he was once feeling is gone now and even though he doesn’t want either of them to go to this place that is apparently better than Brighton anytime soon, knowing that he can go with Dan makes him feel better about going.


End file.
